building-of-the-year

Han Zhang along with her team at ArchDaily China. Image Courtesy of Han Zhang

There's an old, weary tune that people sing to caution against being an architect: the long years of academic training, the studio work that takes away from sleep, and the small job market in which too many people are vying for the same positions. When you finally get going, the work is trying as well. Many spend months or even years working on the computer and doing models before seeing any of the designs become concrete. If you're talking about the grind, architects know this well enough from their training, and this time of ceaseless endeavor in the workplace only adds to that despair.

Which is why more and more architects are branching out. Better hours, more interesting opportunities, and a chance to do more than just build models. Furthermore, the skills you learn as an architect, such as being sensitive to space, and being able to grasp the cultural and societal demands of a place, can be put to use in rather interesting ways. Here, 3 editors at ArchDaily talk about being an architect, why they stopped designing buildings, and what they do in their work now.

With nearly 100,000 votes cast during the last two weeks, we are happy to present the winners of the 2018 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. This peer-based, crowdsourced architecture award showcases projects chosen by ArchDaily readers who filtered thousands of projects down to the 15 best works featured on ArchDaily in 2017.

https://www.archdaily.com/888634/winners-of-the-2018-building-of-the-year-awardsAD Editorial Team

But before we get to shortlisted nominees, we want to emphasize the values embodied by this awards process. As the world’s largest platform for architecture we are acutely aware of our responsibility to the profession, and to the advancement of architecture as a discipline. Since our mission is directly related to the architecture of the future—in inspiring and educating the global community of architects who will design the urban fabric of the future—the trust placed in us by our readers to reflect architectural trends from regions around the whole world creates challenges that we are eager to rise to. The democratically-voted, user-centered Building of the Year Awards is one of the key pillars of our response to these challenges, aiming to tear down established hierarchies and geographical barriers.

By participating in the process, the ArchDaily community decides what it means to push architecture forward. So without further ado, these are the most inspiring building, according to ArchDaily readers.

In 2017, ArchDaily went from strength to strength, as we continued to grow our audience around the globe. Last year we reached more people than ever before, with increases being particularly notable in developing countries. This means that ArchDaily's community of readers is more diverse than ever before

2017 was a defining year for ArchDaily. The change and uncertainty around the globe which emerged during the past year allowed us to double down on our mission to provide information, knowledge, and tools to architects, leveling the access to architectural knowledge and enabling a more diverse, equitable profession. As part of this, we now have a renewed focus on data-driven decisions and crowdsourcing architecture's understanding of its own work. The flagship of this crowdsourcing effort has always been our annual Building of the Year awards.

Now, for the 9th consecutive year, we are tasking our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that are making an impact in the profession, with ArchDaily's 2018 Building of the Year Awards. By voting, you are part of an unbiased, distributed network of jurors and peers that has elevated the most relevant projects over the past eight years. Over the next two weeks, your collective intelligence will filter over 3,500 projects down to just 15 stand-outs—the best in each category on ArchDaily.

The 22nd ARCH Moscow International Exhibition of Architecture and Design was held in Moscow on May 24-28. ArchDaily joined the exhibition’s partners this year for the first time, and together with speech: media-project they presented a special exposition during Arch Moscow.

Featuring the buildings that received the ArchDaily Building of the Year award in 2017. The 16 sites that received the most votes this year from visitors of the ArchDaily website became the focus of this exposition designed by the architect Sergei Tchoban (together with the architect Andrei Perlich, and curator Anna Martovitskaya – chief editor of speech: magazine). In order to best show the sites’ photographs and drawings, the installation was designed in the form of 8 double blocks, whose shape and color reference the ArchDaily logo. Before us are snow-white rectangular blocks with the recognizable blue window-niches, and it is in these niches that the photographs of the best buildings of the year are displayed.

The first edition of ArchDaily China's Building of the Year Awards has now come to a close. Like our global Building of the Year Awards, the awards given by ArchDaily China rely on the collective intelligence of an audience of informed and engaged readers to select the winners.

Once again, ArchDaily readers demonstrated their collective influence, with over 7,000 votes cast over 3 weeks to filter over 300 projects published on ArchDaily China in 2016 to find the 3 best works that mainland China and Hong Kong have to offer. Read on to see the winners.

https://www.archdaily.com/806691/winners-of-the-2017-archdaily-china-building-of-the-year-awardsAD Editorial Team

After two weeks of nominations and voting, last week we announced the 16 winners of the 2017 Building of the Year Awards. In addition to providing inspiration, information, and tools for architecture lovers from around the world, ArchDaily seeks to offer a platform for the many diverse and global voices in the architecture community. In this year's Building of the Year Awards that range of voices was once again on display, with 75,000 voters from around the world offering their selections to ultimately select 16 winners from over 3,000 published projects.

Behind each of those projects are years of research, design, and labor. In the spirit of the world's most democratic architecture award, we share the stories behind the 16 buildings that won over our global readership with their urban interventions, humanitarianism, playfulness, and grandeur.

With two weeks of nominations and voting now complete, we are happy to present the winners of the 2017 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. As a peer-based, crowdsourced architecture award, these winners were chosen by the collective intelligence of over 75,000 votes from ArchDaily readers around the world, filtering over 3,000 projects down to the 16 best works featured on ArchDaily in 2016.

In being published on ArchDaily, these 16 exemplary buildings have helped us to continue our mission, bringing inspiration, knowledge, and tools to architects around the world. This award wouldn't be possible without the hundreds of firms that choose to publish their projects with ArchDaily every year, or without those who take part in the voting process to become part of our thousands-strong awards jury. To everyone who took part—either by submitting a project in the past year, or by nominating and voting for candidates in the past weeks—thank you for giving strength to this award. And of course, congratulations to all the winners!

Read on to see the full list of winning projects.

https://www.archdaily.com/804859/winners-of-the-2017-building-of-the-year-awardsAD Editorial Team

Over 30,000 architects and enthusiasts participated in the nomination process, choosing projects that exemplify what it means to push architecture forward. These finalists are the buildings that have most inspired ArchDaily readers.

This diverse group of projects hail from all corners of the globe and from firms of different sizes and style. This year's selection includes some Building of the Year stalwarts alongside a healthy selection of lesser-known and emerging practices - but most importantly, they all capture architecture's capacity to spark positive change in the environment.

2016 was a defining year for ArchDaily. The change and uncertainty around the globe which emerged during the past year allowed us to double down on our mission to provide information, knowledge, and tools to architects, leveling the access to architectural knowledge and enabling a more diverse, equitable profession. As part of this, we now have a renewed focus on data-driven decisions and crowdsourcing architecture's understanding of its own work. The flagship of this crowdsourcing effort has always been our annual Building of the Year awards.

Now, for the 8th consecutive year, we are tasking our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that are making an impact in the profession, with ArchDaily's 2017 Building of the Year Awards. By voting, you are part of an unbiased, distributed network of jurors and peers that has elevated the most relevant projects over the past seven years. Over the next two weeks, your collective intelligence will filter over 3,000 projects down to just 16 stand-outs—the best in each category on ArchDaily.

Last week, ArchDaily unveiled the 14 winners of this year’s Building of the Year award. Selected by ArchDaily readers from a pool of over 3,000 candidates, these 14 projects represent the best designs published by ArchDaily in the past year, as determined by an unbiased network of 55,000 voters who took part - each of them a judge in one of the world's most democratic architecture awards.

Representing a diverse field of architects, locations and project types, each design has a very different story about how it came into being, how its design responds to its context, how it fits into an architect's oeuvre, or what it says about the direction which architecture is traveling in. But despite the many different types of story represented, each of the stories behind the Building of the Year winners is a fascinating architectural tale. Here are those 14 stories.

After two weeks of nominations and voting, we are pleased to present the winners of the 2016 ArchDaily Building of the Year Awards. As a peer-based, crowdsourced architecture award, the results shown here represent the collective intelligence of 55,000 voters, filtering the best architecture from over 3,000 projects featured on ArchDaily during the past year.

By publishing them on ArchDaily, these exemplary buildings have helped us to impart inspiration and knowledge to architects around the world, furthering our mission. So to everyone who participated by either nominating or voting for a shortlisted project, thank you for being a part of this amazing process, where the voices of architects from all over the world unite to form one strong, intelligent, forward-thinking message.

And of course, congratulations to all the winners!

https://www.archdaily.com/781768/winners-of-the-2016-building-of-the-year-awardsAD Editorial Team

Over 18,000 architects and enthusiasts participated in the nomination process, choosing projects that exemplify what it means to push architecture forward. These finalists are the buildings that have most inspired ArchDaily readers.

This diverse group of projects hail from all corners of the globe and from firms of different sizes and style. This year's selection includes some Building of the Year stalwarts alongside a healthy selection of lesser-known and emerging practices - but most importantly, they all capture architecture's capacity to spark positive change in the environment.

Yesterday, we launched our 2016 Building of the Year awards, inviting you to vote for your favorite buildings that we published in 2015. Now in its 7th year, this global, user-driven awards process has allowed us to break down the traditional barriers in the architectural community, making awards a democratic and representative endeavor. But while taking the collective votes of thousands of architects is an excellent way to find the projects worthy of an award, it's not always the best way to understand why certain projects are deserving of praise; qualitative feedback can be just as important as the quantitative data.

So, as we embark on the Building of the Year journey once again, we wanted to supplement the award with more qualitative input. We'd like you to tell us which is the best project you've seen published on ArchDaily, and why? Whether your favorite building on ArchDaily is a sensitive response to its context, an intelligent use of materials or an intriguing and unexpected form, we want to hear about it! Let us know in the comments below, and the best responses will be featured in a future article.

2015 was an excellent year for ArchDaily. As we've continued to grow, we've delivered more information and tools to more people all around the world, leveling access to architectural knowledge and encouraging an exchange of ideas from professionals of diverse backgrounds, opening architectural up to everyone rather than just the privileged few.

Now for the 7th consecutive year, we are tasking our readers with the responsibility of recognizing and rewarding the projects that are making an impact in the profession with ArchDaily's 2016 Building of the Year Awards. By voting, you are part of an unbiased, distributed network of jurors and peers that has elevated the most relevant projects over the past six years. Over the next two weeks, your collective intelligence will filter over 3,000 projects down to just 14 stand-outs - the best in each category on ArchDaily.

Just over six months have passed since we announced the winners of our 2015 Building of the Year (BOTY) Awards, in which 31,000 of our readers helped us to narrow down over 3,000 projects to just 14 winners. Over six editions of our BOTY Awards, we've given awards to 83 buildings - some of these have gone to established names in the field, from OMA to Álvaro Siza; however over the years our peer-voted awards have also brought attention to emerging architects like Tiago do Vale Arquitectos and given international exposure to architects that were previously only known locally such as sporaarchitects.

Of course, with six months since BOTY 2015 we're also around six months from the award's next installment, making now the perfect time to start looking ahead to 2016. Find out how to ensure your firm has a chance to join the prestigious list of ArchDaily's BOTY winners after the break.

https://www.archdaily.com/771730/submit-your-project-for-inclusion-in-archdailys-2016-building-of-the-year-awardsAD Editorial Team

With our annual Building of the Year Awards, over 30,000 readers narrowed down over 3,000 projects, selecting just 14 as the best examples of architecture that ArchDaily has published in the past year. The results have been celebrated and widely shared, of course, usually in the form of images of each project. But what is often forgotten in this flurry of image sharing is that every one of these 14 projects has a backstory of significance which adds to our understanding of their architectural quality.

Some of these projects are intelligent responses to pressing social issues, others are twists on a well-established typology. Others still are simply supreme examples of architectural dexterity. In order that we don't forget the tremendous amount of effort that goes into creating each of these architectural masterpieces, continue reading after the break for the 14 stories that defined this year's Building of the Year Awards.